Alan Keyes counters 'religious freedom' claim regarding contraceptive mandate

WorldNetDaily.com

Alan Keyes

In my WND column last Friday, I pointed out that “every assertion of a fundamental human right necessarily relies in turn upon an assertion about what is right.” Today this fact is more often than not ignored, even by Americans who profess to be ardent defenders of the liberty America’s founders intended to establish and preserve. Madison succinctly summarized the founders’ understanding when he said that “Justice is the end of government, it is the end of civil society. …” But the Declaration of Independence makes clear that the end or aim of the institution of government is to secure God-endowed unalienable rights. (“To secure these rights governments are instituted among men. …”) Justice is thus identified with the security (safe existence) of unalienable rights, because both are identified as the singular end or aim of government. (If A=C and B=C, then A=B.)

This appears even more plainly when we recall that the root of justice (Latin “iustus”) is right (Latin “ius” or “ious”). But in the context of the Declaration’s stated purpose for government, God endows right (i.e., He provides the “income” that establishes it; He determines what goes into it; He is the source of its conceptual substance or meaning). In the Declaration America’s founders declare that the colonies “are, and of right ought to be free and independent States. …” Their free condition is thus identified as a matter or right, a consequence of the substance or meaning which God endows their nature. By invoking their natural right they invoke the authority of the Creator, which is its source and substantiation.

Since the founders’ assertion of freedom invokes the authority of the Creator, the validity of the assertion depends on its conformity with the substance or meaning of right established by that authority. But this dependency has a consequence. It restricts the assertion of freedom within boundaries determined by this conformity to God-endowed right. Freedom is therefore not an unlimited potential for action. The assertion of freedom is valid only for action in conformity with the substance or meaning of right as established (endowed) by the Creator.

By this straightforward logic Abraham Lincoln was bound to conclude that one cannot have the right to do what is wrong. If it is wrong, for instance, to murder innocent people, one cannot claim to do so as a matter of right. If it is wrong, by enslaving them, to violate their God-endowed liberty, one cannot claim to do so as a matter of right.

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Tom Hoefling 2012
tomhoefling.com

"I intend to restore the plumb line of American principle - 'we hold these truths to be self-evident' - and to make it the political battle line. Pick a side."

-- Tom Hoefling, presidential nominee of America's Party, Feb. 24, 2012

American Minute with Bill Federer

George Washington was born FEBRUARY 22, 1732.

He was unanimously chosen as the Army's Commander-in-Chief, unanimously chosen as President of the Constitutional Convention, and unanimously chosen as the first U.S. President.

After having the Declaration of Independence read to his troops, General Washington ordered chaplains placed in each regiment, stating:

"The General hopes and trusts, that every officer and man, will endeavour so to live, and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier, defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country."

General Washington stated at Valley Forge, May 2, 1778:

"To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to laud the more distinguished Character of Christian."

To the Delaware Indian Chiefs who brought three youths to be trained in American schools, General Washington stated, May 12, 1779:

"You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ."

As recorded in The Writings of George Washington (March 10, 1778, 11:83-84, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1934), record George Washington's order:

"At a General Court Marshall whereof Colo. Tupper was President...Lieutt. Enslin of Colo. Malcom's Regiment tried for attempting to commit sodomy, with John Monhort a soldier;

Secondly, For Perjury in swearing to false Accounts, found guilty of the charges exhibited against him, being breaches of 5th. Article 18th Section of the Articles of War and do sentence him to be dismiss'd the service with Infamy.

His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief approves the sentence and with Abhorrence and Detestation of such Infamous Crimes orders Liett. Enslin to be drummed out of Camp tomorrow morning by all the Drummers and Fifers in the Army never to return."

In his Farewell Address, 1796, Washington stated:

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports.

In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness."

"(W)hen in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, or none but Anglo-Saxon white men, were entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began, so that truth and justice and mercy and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built."

-- Abraham Lincoln, August 17, 1858